Blackhat

This tale of international cyber-espionage from magisterial action director Michael Mann sees the US and China forced to co-operate when they experience related cyber-attacks. The original architect of the offending malware - a hacker played by Chris Hemsworth - is sprung from jail to assist the investigation, but early attempts to render the subject matter cinematic bode ill, as sparking circuit boards and glowing cables prove less than thrilling. The cast flounder, too. Viola Davis is squandered as a government agent and Hemsworth makes a leaden protagonist, while his romance with a colleague (played limply by Wei Tang) is a damp squib on which the film becomes increasingly reliant. Procedural implausibilities abound, and the Bond-esque plot is incoherent and eventually underwhelming. Punchy, enlivening action is dotted throughout, lest the audience forget who's at the helm when faced with reams of spirit-sapping computer code, but Blackhat is an inconsistent, ill-conceived affair that rarely, if ever, rings true.